Principals should model the behaviors they hope teachers will use with students, Pam Robbins, an international consultant, told Summer Institute participants in her Assembly session, “Building a Foundation for Small Learning Communities.”

“We have known for some time that the teacher has the most profound impact on student achievement, and now we are seeing that a school’s culture has a profound effect on both adults and students flourishing,” she said. She urged the principals to strive to develop a culture that builds and sustains trust so teachers will “feel comfortable sharing and solving problems collaboratively.”

Robbins told the audience that risk tolerance depends on trust, and too many schools try to change classroom approaches before a foundation of trust is established. The result is that many “adults go packing.”

She explained to principals that one place to develop trust is in faculty meetings, and gave the participants a number of mini-lesson plans for conducting successful staff meetings. One key is diagnosing working relations between staff members so activities can be included in faculty meetings that will fully engage teachers.

“If teachers always work in isolationism, a non-threatening activity should be used,” she said. “For example, an article on closing the achievement gap could be read and discussed. This is low-risk and teachers don’t have to put their personal knowledge on the line.

“If teachers are more used to working together, an activity called consulting trios can be used. Here, three teachers work together. One will share a problem with the others for five minutes; the other two will ask questions for five minutes; then the trio will share ideas to solve the problem for five minutes.

Robbins emphasized that if principals want to see change in the classroom, they must model with teachers the learning behaviors they hope teachers will use with students.

Robbins can be contacted at [email protected].